Abstract
The continuous growth of the Canadian economy depends considerably on immigration. However, Canada has still work to do in order to ensure that new immigrants successfully integrate its labour market. Our research focuses on a means that is often considered critical to ensure this integration: job-related training. In this study, the expression “job-related training” refers to employer-sponsored learning activities related to a specific job.
We have two goals. The first is to determine whether immigrants and Canadian-born persons have similar opportunities to participate to job-related training activities. The second is to examine the effect of gender and time since immigration on an immigrant’s likelihood to participate to job-related-training. Our quantitative empirical analysis relies on data from Statistics Canada’s 2003 Adult Education and Training Survey.
Our study enables us to reach our first objective. Indeed, it reveals that immigrant workers are less likely than Canadian-born persons to participate in job-related training activities. Although other studies have reported a similar gap between these two groups, our study is special in that it controls the effect of six variables, which, according to the literature, influence participation to job-related training. This characteristic reduces the likelihood that the observed gap between immigrants and Canadian-born persons be the result of a factor other than immigration status.
Our empirical study also allows us to reach our second objective, though only partially. Our study shows that time since immigration is positively related to the likelihood that an immigrant participates to job-related training. However, it leaves unanswered the question regarding the impact of the immigrant’s gender. Against our expectations, we do not observe that gender has a statistically significant effect on the relationship between immigration status and the level of job-related training. Our study brings nonetheless attention to a possible moderating factor that deserves further attention from researchers.Abstract
The continuous growth of the Canadian economy depends considerably on immigration. However, Canada has still work to do in order to ensure that new immigrants successfully integrate its labour market. Our research focuses on a means that is often considered critical to ensure this integration: job-related training. In this study, the expression “job-related training” refers to employer-sponsored learning activities related to a specific job.
We have two goals. The first is to determine whether immigrants and Canadian-born persons have similar opportunities to participate to job-related training activities. The second is to examine the effect of gender and time since immigration on an immigrant’s likelihood to participate to job-related-training. Our quantitative empirical analysis relies on data from Statistics Canada’s 2003 Adult Education and Training Survey.
Our study enables us to reach our first objective. Indeed, it reveals that immigrant workers are less likely than Canadian-born persons to participate in job-related training activities. Although other studies have reported a similar gap between these two groups, our study is special in that it controls the effect of six variables, which, according to the literature, influence participation to job-related training. This characteristic reduces the likelihood that the observed gap between immigrants and Canadian-born persons be the result of a factor other than immigration status.
Our empirical study also allows us to reach our second objective, though only partially. Our study shows that time since immigration is positively related to the likelihood that an immigrant participates to job-related training. However, it leaves unanswered the question regarding the impact of the immigrant’s gender. Against our expectations, we do not observe that gender has a statistically significant effect on the relationship between immigration status and the level of job-related training. Our study brings nonetheless attention to a possible moderating factor that deserves further attention from researchers.